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5 Quick Tips to Surviving Final Exams

The tips in this article may be quick tips that anybody can do, but they do require work, and they especially require dedication. Doing something once is easy, but doing it routinely without missing is very difficult and takes a lot of will power. If you can follow these tips routinely, you are going to find your final exams very VERY easy!

1 – Progressive knowledge building

Exams are probably one of the most old-fashioned and outdated ways of teaching and testing. Other than practical examinations, the idea of committing facts to memory is becoming useless when anybody can jump on a mobile phone and find most answers within seconds. Nevertheless, knowing facts and concepts is a big part of exams, so what you have to use is progressive knowledge building.

The technique is fairly simple and involves numerous elements. You must read ahead in your textbooks so that you have already read what the teacher/professor is going to talk about in your next lecture. You must write your notes in class in bullet form, and you must expand on them when you get home. It is imperative that you expand on your notes that night and that you do not sleep between the time you took the notes and the time you expanded them and wrote them out. Finally, at three times per week you need to pick a section in your textbook and explain it (this is expanded in tip 5).

2 – Meeting all the deadlines

If you were told that the students that meet their coursework and homework deadlines are the ones that do the best in their exams, you would probably consider it counter intuitive. At the very least you would assume the trend exists because good and studious students get their essays in as per their deadlines, and studious students are more likely to score highly in their exams. However, reason for this trend is far more simple.

Trends show that students that get their essays and coursework in on time are more likely to do well in their exams. This trend exists because those students do not experience the snowball effect that comes from missing deadlines. Not only do those students have to work harder after the deadline to get their work done, they also have less time to study. This makes them less prepared for future essays, which affects their submission times, and the vicious cycle goes on and on to the point where the student has had very little time to actually study for exams.

You really need to make the extra effort to get all of your work done as per your deadlines. If you start to fail or fall behind, then nip the problem in the bud right away and use assignment writing service Assignmentmasters. Get them to do your essay so that it is handed in on time and you have more time to study for your exams.

3 – Practice actually doing exams

A massive amount of exams use the same questions over and over again because there are only a few ways of asking students the same thing. Lots of exams have re-worded questions that appeared the years before. Take the time to work on a lot of old exams in your subject. You can find them online, and many of the examination-creation companies post them online. Go over the exams and use them to revise, and you are guaranteed to see anywhere between 30% and 70% of the same questions reused be reworded. A group of British students proved you can pass final exams in many subjects for various degrees by memorizing the answers for previous years’ exam papers.

4 – Learn to ignore the clock

Many students fail their exams because of anxiety caused by the clock. Overcoming this anxiety is easy. When you practice and revise using old exam papers (as per tip 3), practice them against the clock–but purposefully go over the time limit. Do not actually try to get it all done in the time limit. Actually go out of your way to go slower so that there are still questions left over at the end.

What will this prove? Well, try it first, and then add up your score for your exam. Most people will still pass even if they leave questions unanswered at the end, which is a weight of most people’s shoulders. But, it is not only that, there is also the fact that when you are “trying” to go slow so that you “purposefully” run out of time–it is actually kinda hard! Going slow in order to let the clock beat you is actually difficult, and once you realize this, you will realize how silly you were for rushing trying to beat the clock.

5 – Pick a section in your textbook and explain it

If you are using progressive learning as per tip one, then you should be learning at a fairly consistent rate. You need to test this and push your mind to ensure the information in your mind is refreshed and active (for want of a better word).

Firstly, you need to make a note of all the things you have learnt so far. The easiest way to do this is to list the chapter numbers in your textbooks that you have covered already. Three times per week you need to find this list and pick a chapter at random. Pick a chapter, quickly skim read through it, and then recite it aloud in your room (or a place where you won’t disturb anybody). Pretend as if you are teaching what is in the chapter to a room full of people. It should only take between five and thirty minutes.

Once you have finished reciting, go back to your textbook and read through to see if there are any parts you have missed. Do only one chapter per session, but have at least three sessions per week. Doing it this way will highlight the things you do not know yet, so you can go over it, and it will confirm your knowledge of the subject, which will make you a far better performer when doing your exams.